For a lot coverage

If current bylaws were respected, Alan Crescent development wouldn't happen

Thank you for your extensive report on the recent Committee of Adjustment meeting that dealt with the bylaw variances being requested by a developer at 20 Alan Crescent in Fonthill [What is a “neighbourhood,” Jan. 22, p. 3].

I am the next-door neighbour to this property and am writing this letter as a means of explaining to the wider community the potential negative ramifications of approval of the requested variances, as being supported by our Planning Department.

In June 2019, the developer or his representative met with the Town off Pelham Planning Department in a “pre-consultation meeting” to ascertain what could be done with the property regarding severance and development.

In the fall of 2019, three people who know the developer reported to our neighbourhood that the developer was planning to sever one building lot off the property facing Elizabeth St., then if successful with that, he would proceed to demolish the existing bungalow and sever two more lots facing Alan Crescent, on which two new homes would be built and sold.

On or about December 1, 2019, we neighbours received notice from the Town that the developer had applied to the Committee of Adjustment for several “minor” variances to our established bylaws to sever one lot facing Elizabeth St.

The variances requested total seven in number:

1. For general severance of the lot

2. For severance of a lot smaller than allowed by our current bylaw

3. For a lot frontage smaller than allowed by our current bylaw

4. For a lot coverage building footprint) higher than allowed by our current bylaw

5. For a front yard smaller than allowed by our current bylaw

6. For a side yard smaller than allowed by our current bylaw

7. For a rear yard smaller than allowed by our current bylaw

Every variance request herein asks the Town to ignore the current bylaws, and the Planning Department said yes, they support these applications and the Committee of Adjustment should approve the variances!

Why is the Planning Department advising the Committee of Adjustment to ignore the bylaws in this case? Isn’t the Planning Department supposed to uphold and respect our bylaws? Why do we have bylaws if we don’t respect and enforce them?

There are many other issues related to this development proposal that have been brought to the attention of the Planning Department and the Committee of Adjustment, such as: establishing precedent, which other developers will use; infilling guidelines; provincial and Regional directions; the removal of 50-year-old mature trees and climate change; drainage issues and further pressure on aging infrastructure such as sewers and water lines/the absence of storm sewers in this area; the cutting- up of spacious lots and demolishing of perfectly good and well-built homes to create two-to-three vacant lots, which are more valuable collectively than the one established home and lot; and finally, changing radically the character of an established neighbourhood and going against the wishes and appeals of every resident in the area and beyond.

While all of the above issues and others deserve attention at some time or other by the Planning Department, the Mayor and Town Council, and we citizens, the urgency and stress of doing so go away if we just judge our developers’ requests by firstly following and respecting established bylaws, thereafter considering the myriad of other issues.

There will no doubt be more to come, from me and other residents of our wonderful town.

Foster Zanutto Fonthill

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Kobe Bryant, Vanessa Bryant, Gianna Maria Onore Bryant and Natalia Diamante Bryant, in Los Angeles, February 2018. STARFRENZY

KOBE continued from Page 2

ly correct, Bryant went out the sometimes ugly way he wanted to — even if teammates were feeding him the ball every chance they got.

News of Bryant’s death Sunday in a Los Angeles County helicopter crash, at age 41, has come as a brutal shock to the basketball world. In a tragic added gut punch, his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna — a promising basketball player herself — and seven others are among the dead. I’ll spare platitudes about dying young, but the last time that an elite, transcendent sports superstar died in a similar manner, either during their career or so soon after it ended, was probably Roberto Clemente, in 1972.

Bryant’s basketball accolades need no re-hashing. A five-time NBA champion, 18-time All-Star, 15-time All-NBA selection, twotime scoring champion and one-time MVP, his place in history is secure, even if he probably ranks behind LeBron James and Michael Jordan, as one the greatest players of all time. (In an eerie footnote, James had just surpassed Bryant for third on the NBA’s career points list the night before his death, against the 76ers, in Bryant’s hometown of Philadelphia no less.)

Bryant spent part of his childhood in Italy, where his father Joe “Jellybean” Bryant played professional basketball. He later returned to Pennsylvania and became a star at Lower Merion High School. In 1996, he joined a trend at the time of jumping straight to the NBA from secondary school. His hubris his first few years as a pro could be exasperating, and it eventually helped lead to his breakup with Lakers teammate Shaquille O’Neal.

That on-court style and his off-court life became polarizing. In 2005, after criminal charges were dropped, he reached an outof-court settlement in a civil sexual assault lawsuit brought by a woman who said he raped her in a Colorado hotel room in 2003. The incident cost Bryant much of his reputation and millions in endorsement contracts, but he went on to say that the experience returned his sole focus to basketball. And in the NBA of the late 2000s, there was no harder worker than Kobe Bryant. In 2009 and 2010, he finally shed the “Can’t win without Shaq” label, leading the Lakers to back-to-back titles. In his retirement years, as his daughters began to excel at the sport, he also became a champion of the women’s game.

My own personal experience around Bryant was limited. I even fell asleep early, ten years before that final game, on the night of Jan. 22, 2006, before he dropped 81 points on the Raptors. I was, however, fortunate enough to be in attendance for his final NBA All-Star Game, in 2016, and I’ll never forget the time, in December 2010, he made us media wait an hour and a half in the locker room, after a win in Toronto, because he wanted to watch the end of the Philadelphia Eagles game on TV.

What I’ll remember most is his laser-like focus on the game and dedication to his craft, to the point where some speculated he was a sociopath. I’ll also remember everyone — from kids throwing paper in a wastebasket to bad rec-league basketball players chucking up ill-advised shots — shouting “Kobe!” while they did it. ♦

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